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Friday, October 28, 2016

The Archangels Orbital Intervention Force consists of 3 Terminator squads or Terminators Assault squads. Swift Deployment requires the Formation to start the game in Deep Strike Reserve but allows them all to arrive on a single reserve roll. Orbital Intervention is
the exciting rule, as it allows Terminator squads to fire twice on the
turn they deep strike (at different targets if they want) and Terminator
Assault squads to assault on the turn the deep strike, albeit making a
disordered charge.

These
are both strong abilities, making Terminators worth taking again.
Allowing Terminators to shoot twice is great, but allowing Assault
Terminators to charge out of deep strike is huge. Terminators are much
more durable in assault than in shooting, and only having to endure a
round of overwatch before reaching close combat will mean they last a
lot longer. The disordered charge won't matter much for them because
Assault Terminators all carry pretty devastating weapons. An extra
attack and point of strength is relatively minor.

Friday, October 21, 2016

Here's another Scout squad to pair with Sergeant El'Borak's squad from last week and allow me to deploy a 10th Company Task Force. This is Squad Tenaka, and they also make use of the Judge helmets from Puppetswar.

Wednesday, October 19, 2016

The Angel's Blade Strike Force is a relatively flexible Detachment, requiring only 1 Core Formation and 1 Auxiliary Formation, with no limits on how many of either you can take, and allowing up to 5 Command Formations. It's Command Benefits include:

The Angel's Virtue: This is the almost obligatory re-roll for WarlordTrait when rolling on the tables in Codex: Blood Angels or in Angel's Blade. Strangely, the only Warlord table in Angel's Blade can't be taken within the Angel's Blade Strike Force, so you're really limited to the the Blood Angels' traits.

The Red Thirst is the rule we all know and love from the Baal Strike Force, giving our squads +1 Initiative on the charge. I'm just happy that it can apply to Formations now.

The Sons of Sanguinius is the only truly new Command Benefit, and it grants Zealot to any unit reduced to half its starting models. I've heard a lot of people saying that this isn't a great rule, but I think it could be quite useful. Often, objectives are held at the end of the game by the last couple models from otherwise destroyed squads. Now, these models will be Fearless, making them even better objective holders. In addition, our durable assault units such as Sanguinary Guard, Death Company, and Assault Terminators are rarely wiped out all at once. I almost always have the remnants of these squads running around in the last turns of game, assaulting small objective holding units. Being able to re-roll their attacks on the charge is an excellent bonus given how many high-quality attacks these models have.

Monday, October 17, 2016

Angel's Blade has been out for a few weeks, and it's given Blood Angels some options that they were sorely lacking. It remains to be seen if Angel's Blade will raise the Blood Angels out of the lower tier of 40K armies.

First off, it has some fun fluff. The Blood Angels take on the Crimson Slaughter, Black Legion, and a horde of Khorne Berzerkers led by Kharn the Betrayer. There are some cliched moments (for 40K fluff at least), including far too much of the Blood Angels force falling to the Black Rage and the Sanguinor destroying way more than he possibly could on the table (I wish his rules matched his fluff). At least the Black Rage epidemic has a reason beyond "they just got really angry" and the Death Company slap the Crimson Slaughter around like grots. Blood Angels are like Bruce Banner; making them angry is never a good idea, but villains can't seem to resist making it part of their plan.

Rules wise, all of the tanks as well as Land Speeders gained the ability to be taken in squadrons as well as bonuses for having three in a squad. These are all the same as those for Space Marines, but Baal Predators gained Wall of Firepower, which allows them to re-roll to wound rolls of 1 with all of their weapons. This is solid but not super interesting; I suspect it was the only rule they could come up with that worked equally well for all of the weapons the Baals can be armed with.

Friday, October 14, 2016

As I hinted last week, I've added a Scout squad to my Executioners. I've been meaning to do this for a while, as Scouts provide some excellent bolter fire and board presence, and I'm excited to field a 10th Company Task Force within my Sternhammer Strike Force.

The Scouts, as well as the Executioner Heads, were my first Father's Day present, so I wanted them to look really good.

Friday, October 7, 2016

A while back, Puppetswar released a set of Executioner Heads. They really called to me. For one, they're called Executioner heads. I had to look into them just because of that. Even better, they're clearly supposed to be Judge heads from the Judge Dredd comics. The helmets, the jawlines, the sneers; they're all spot on. I already have specific helmets I use for my full Marines, but I needed helmeted heads for Scouts.